Customer Reviews

Toymaking with Children

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This book is a revised and expanded edition of the original book titled "Making Soft Toys" which was published in 1981. The author is a Waldorf Kindergarten teacher. This book discusses the importance of play as seen through a Waldorf education perspective and explains that natural playthings from nature and toys made from natural products are important. The book opens with several essays on the subject of the value of play and the nature of (appropriate) play as seen through the eyes of a Waldorf educator. Simple toys that allow imaginative and creative play are defined as ideal and appropriate for the proper development of the child. The author states that toys made by hand are more appreciated by children and she urges parents to make toys by hand, with the child's help or the child watching. A listing of toys appropriate for different age groups is listed. Discussion about outdoor play, play with dolls, and clean up time is included. Full instructions for over 45 toys are provided. Toys include dolls and doll clothing, knitted animals, wooden playstands and cloths, wooden tree blocks, and carved wooden toys (bridges, animals, spoons, etc.). Using wool roving is explained and instructions for creating pictures with plant-dyed wool end the book. The book is 93 pages long and the instructions are detailed and illustrated with line drawings. If you enjoy crafts and want to make Waldorf-style toys, this book is a must and a good value. Of course you can buy many of these toys already made, but you would save a lot of money by making these yourself.

This book gives good ideas for toys to make at home and gives some good description of children's play at different stages. The main problem I have is that I have never carved wood and there are no directions on how to actually carve. I would like to make some of the wooden toys, but I will need to do more research beyond this book to actually be able to carve the wooden toys. So, I guess I'm saying, if you have a base knowledge in sewing and carving, this book is very good....if not, you will need to do some other research in addition to this book.

I recieved this book and really couldn't be more pleased! It begins by describing the purpose of play, and shows us how to best implement positive play in children's lives. It lists some toys that are appropriate for each age group and goes on to describe how to make a number of toys. The ideas i found to be very enlightening, and I so look forward to making some of these wonderful toys! Oh and this book has a waldorf slant to it. An excellent find!

I bought the book initially thinking it might be a source of woodworking projects for my husband and son to share. I'm not sure if my husband has even looked at it yet. Once I started reading it I took it over. I love this book! The author gives great information about play and includes wonderful, and varied projects to fill an entire playroom. I read it and immediately went to work gathering and creating many of the suggested toys. The difference in the way my children approach play was instantly noticeable. We've enjoyed making many of the toys together. Before reading the book I was sold on simple toys that allowed children to use their imagination as much as possible. I didn't however, have a strong value for making my own toys. After knitting a donkey to the wonder of my 2-year-old daughter and sitting at the table sanding and finishing a set of "building logs" with my 4-year-old son, I was sold. The toys we made together are imbued with the warmth of spending time together. They use them more often and more creatively than any toys we've bought for them. I'm so glad I bought this book.

You hear people comment all the time "my child prefers the box to the toy" and so on and I really think it says a lot about toys today. Children want to be active in their creativity. At many a play date with my children I have seen all the kids quickly abandon the elaborate play set to go play make-believe on large rocks or a fallen tree or some other simple natural structure that is open-ended to whatever they want it to be for them. This book helps bring that element into the home and the playroom. Just today our family went to the beach and collected smooth stones and driftwood for cutting into logs for the playroom and all it cost us was a good time. I'm pretty sad to think of the money I have wasted in the past on toys that didn't capture the interest of my children nearly as much as a basket of rocks or a simple homemade doll.

Although I don't think this book is quite what I expected, I love it! it has an abundance of toys of all sizes and difficulty to make for your little ones and my little girl has loved them all. Some take as little as a n hour while others take more time and care.

While some of the ideas are raw even for my taste (using baskets of cleaned, dried, stone fruit pits for money when playing store, for instance etc.), I have made & implemented a number of others, particularly in the doll-making areas, & designing a play space.

Bear in mind that the book lends itself to Waldorf-style play, which encourages open-ended play things & spaces that foster imagination, as well as incorporating nature into as many aspects of children's play as possible. So the toy making entails a lot of wood carving of ambiguous, amorphous figures, dolls and "blocks."

It also has instructions for making the semi-popular cloth Waldorf doll, which is a nice element of the book.

This is a really great book on how to mkae simple, and some not so simple toys for children. Most of them are just beautiful as well.